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Congressman Tom Cole: This Man Could Save Vaping

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Congressman Tom Cole (R-OK) has introduced a new legislation which could save the entire vape industry. Congressman Cole’s bill HR2058 would extend the grandfather date for tobacco products that would require the FDA’s approval.

In other words, existing companies would not have to submit a new product application.

The Tobacco Control act of 2009, gave the FDA full control to regulate and determine what new tobacco products can be sold to the public. Under that law, the grandfather date that exempted existing companies was 2007. Meaning any “tobacco” product released after that date had to go through the application process which requires proof of “substantial equivalence”

Proof of substantial equivalence would require clinical trials, meaning any company that wanted to sell e-liquid would have to put their product through a long and expensive clinical trial before it could be legally allowed to sell. This includes e juice without nicotine as well.

Most vape companies are small independent businesses, that lack the resources and know how to even carry out the application. The cost for it would be so high that even biggest brands would not be able to afford it.

Learn more about how these FDA regulations would affect small business owners in this article.

The implications:

The FDA’s decision on vapor products is still pending, but its safe to say they will classify it as a Tobacco product. Under such a classification, the entire vape industry would be placed under the same rules of the Tobacco Control Act. The only companies that would be exempt would be anyone who was operating in 2007, which is pretty much nobody.

Without Congressman Cole’s HR2058 bill, the vapor industry as we know it would be destroyed virtually overnight. Literally mass scale extinction of almost every independent e-liquid company, mod manufacturer, distributor and thousands of vape shops would be forced to close.

The current law would essentially hand over the entire vapor market to big tobacco since they`re the only ones who could actually carry out the application process.

Cole’s legislation would extend the grandfather date to begin on the date of the FDA’s ruling on vapor products. Protecting the existing industry and thousands of small businesses and startups. While it would still make it difficult for new companies to enter the market, at the very least it would allow the current companies to grow and expand.

The Yale educated, Oklahoma native, Congressman Cole just became the vape communities potential savior. Whether he knows it or not. His simple, fair, and common sense legislation will preserve hundreds of thousands of jobs. It will ensure that current smokers will have access to quality vape products. and support as more and more people transition to vaping to quit cigarettes.

He is not only saving people’s financial security, but saving lives as well.